School Calls Cops After 12-year-olds Kiss

A school administrator in Florida called the sheriff after a pair of consenting 12-year-olds shared a kiss on the playground.

Lee County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to Orange River Elementary School after two female students were debating over who liked a 12-year-old boy more. At that point, one of the girls walked over and kissed the boy – leading an assistant principal to call authorities.

The administrator initially contacted the Florida Dept. of Children and Families. However, DCF told the school that they needed to call local law enforcement.

“They called us and said they caught two children kissing on the playground,” Sgt. Stephanie Eller told Fox News & Commentary. “The reality is it was probably something innocent between two kids on the playground.”

Eller said the deputies took a report and documented the incident, but determined no crime had been committed.

“If it had been a crime at all it would have been a simple battery,” Eller said. “The battery consists of the unwanted touching of one person to another.”

She said no one was arrested.

“At this point, it doesn’t look like we have anyone who was an unwilling participant in this,’ she said, referring to the playground smooch.

Eller said she suspected the school was being overly cautious.

“In the past, they would have been reluctant to say anything,” she said. “That reluctance is gone because they don’t want to be the one that didn’t say something at that point at which the behavior was starting.”

However, Joe Donzelli, a spokesman for Lee County Public Schools, said that wasn’t the case at all. The school system said there was another – more serious incident that resulted in the telephone call to police.

When there is “suspicion to the level of concern, school employees are required to call DCF,” Donzelli told the Naples News.

He said school district employees are required to call DCF if they suspect abuse.

But Eller said school administrators never conveyed anything serious to the sheriff’s department.

“That was never conveyed to our deputies,” she said.

Eller said they were only called to the school because they had a report “of two children kissing.”

Meanwhile, parents are accusing the school of overreacting.

“Whatever happened to common sense,” one parent wrote to the local newspaper.

Another parent suggested the principal needed to be fired.

“A kiss between 12-year-olds, I would say, is relatively harmless,” another wrote.